Nearly 500 men from across the diocese came together for a day of prayer, fellowship and impactful speaker sessions
By William Van de Planque | On Mission
Photography by Benjamin Wideman | For On Mission
APPLETON, WI — Faithful Catholic men in the Diocese of Green Bay, striving to be better husbands and fathers, have been gathering annually since 2005 to reignite their desire for Jesus and leadership in their families.
This year’s Esto Vir Men’s Conference, held at St. Pius X Parish, Appleton, on Saturday, February 21, 2026, was no different. Nearly 500 men attended the conference to spend time together in fellowship and prayer.
Confessions were offered throughout the day, as well as keynote and breakout speaker sessions on fatherhood, leadership in the home, raising good men, spiritual warfare and more, before the conference ended with a holy hour of Eucharistic adoration.
Kollin Petrie, the executive director of Esto Vir, said that adoration and confession are a core piece of the conference. Bishop David Ricken led the holy hour of Eucharistic adoration at the Esto Vir conference, and Petrie intentionally did not schedule time for confession during the holy hour.
Everyone in attendance was able to spend an hour in adoration, a new logistical accomplishment of the conference, Petrie said.
Petrie announced the launch of the Esto Vir “Way of Life” Lenten program, a 40-day Scripture series with short video reflections. The focus of the series is the four pillars of the Esto Vir “Way of Life”: daily prayer with the Scriptures; fasting until 4 p.m. on Wednesdays and abstaining from meat on Fridays year-round; confession once a month; and fostering brotherhood by meeting regularly with a small group of men.
“That’s really what we feel is key to following the Lord and being a good husband and father and the best we can be for our families,” Petrie said. “We’re trying to work with other men’s groups to encourage them to adopt this way of life.”
The series features Bishop Ricken; Mother Mary Catherine of the Missionaries of the Word religious order; Fr. John Girotti, vicar general of the Diocese of Green Bay; Dr. Peter Murphy, an Esto Vir board member; and more.
Pete Burak, the vice president of Renewal Ministries, a ministry dedicated to Catholic renewal and evangelization around the world, brought up two kinds of stories that men today are living in his keynote session: the story of the world and the story of God.
He invited the men gathered to live no longer with one foot in the world and the other in the Kingdom of God but rather to live fully for God.
Peter Herbeck, the executive vice president and director of missions of Renewal Ministries, led the second keynote session and talked to the attendees about reaching the heights and striving for greatness rather than comfort.
Both Herbeck and Burak led breakout sessions as well.
The theme for this year’s conference was “To the Heights,” which was the motto of St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, who was canonized last year. The conference last year focused on fatherhood and what it means to be a father and to pass on the faith to children.
“That theme (fatherhood) has carried into this year’s theme,” Petrie said. “(There is) this sense that we are all just settling for less than what God has made for us.”
Petrie, who has been married for 10 years and has five children, used to think that being a priest or in a religious vocation would be the hardest vocation, he said.
“Being a dad now, I can see that that vocation is plenty hard as well,” he said.
Petrie worked in quality engineering for four years before joining the Esto Vir mission as its first full-time employee. Before that, he spent about eight years working in Catholic education as a youth minister, theology teacher and campus minister.
When he saw the posting for the executive director position, he was working for Worthington Enterprises near Chilton, Wisconsin.
“I probably would have continued there (Worthington Enterprises) if not for the posting for this job with Esto Vir about a year and a half ago,” he said. “I had been to a conference, and it seemed to be a part of God’s plan ultimately after I threw my hat into the ring and had the chance to meet some of the guys that were involved.”
Petrie attended his first conference in 2023, held at The National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion.
“I actually only first heard of Esto Vir probably three or four years ago,” he said. He was invited by a friend and colleague at the time.
Petrie now lives east of Fond du Lac and belongs to Our Lady of the Holyland Parish, the northernmost parish in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
Fr. Ben Pribbenow, the Esto Vir chaplain, was the main celebrant of the Mass with which the conference began.
Con-celebrating priests included Fr. Jim Jugenheimer, pastor of St. Pius X Parish; Fr. Kevin Ripley, director of the Kairos Year; Fr. Zach Weber, director of the Catholic campus ministry at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh; and Br. Nathan Linton, OFM Cap., vocations director for the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Joseph, based in Milwaukee.
The annual Esto Vir Men’s Conference was first held in 2005, after Bishop David Zubik asked a small group of men to bring a men’s conference to the Diocese of Green Bay.
One of those men was John Cavil, one of the founders of Relevant Radio, a nonprofit Catholic radio network based in Green Bay. Cavil remains on the board of directors of the nonprofit organization that Esto Vir has become.
Since 2005, the conference has seen large numbers of Catholic men from across the diocese gathering every year to deepen their faith.
“I think some of the largest conferences that they had over the years had close to 1,500 guys attending (them),” Petrie said.
Around 2020, the core leadership team of Esto Vir began discussing ways to keep men engaged in their faith outside the conference. Soon after, they partnered with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) and received training from Kyle Hanson, a FOCUS missionary from Appleton.
“(Hanson) trained the core team on the little way of evangelization and what FOCUS missionaries do,” Petrie said. “I had a chance to walk with him for a year before that partnership concluded, and I was really blessed by that.”
Around the same time the partnership with FOCUS began, the core team for the conference, which became the board of directors, decided to create a 501(c)(3) and make Esto Vir a nonprofit organization. The four-year partnership with FOCUS ended last year.
“(The board of directors), in partnership with FOCUS, started to work on becoming missionary disciples themselves and saying yes to that call and then going out and trying to form small groups of men,” Petrie said.
There are now active small groups in the Green Bay and Appleton areas, as well as in Door County.
“Our approach is unique in the sense that we’re not trying to compete with men’s groups that are already existing,” Petrie said. “There are a lot of parishes that have men’s groups. We want to see all of these apostolates for men continue to flourish and grow.”
Esto Vir holds other events during the year, such as a recent Catholic dads breakfast at St. Ignatius Catholic School in Kaukauna and a date night for married couples in the fall. Esto Vir also publishes a quarterly magazine, which started last summer.
“We are in this unique spot where we are turning our sights toward the future, and what does it mean for us to be this apostolate for men in the diocese?” Petrie said. “We feel really called to serve the needs of the Church as it relates to how men are missing from the parishes. Guys are just disengaged.”
“Our mission is to reclaim the world for Christ by engaging with men and helping them to become better husbands and fathers and helping men lead their families to Jesus because, at the end of the day, they’re the ones that have that responsibility.”
Click here to learn more about Esto Vir and the “Way of Life” Lenten program.